long-term decisions
Unpleasant planning
When I turned 40, I walked into a lawyer's office on my lunch break and announced I needed a will. The lady told me it wasn't quite that simple, but she helped me get all my legal and financial shit together, the results of which are in a black binder in the back of my fancy filing cabinet. I remember feeling relieved when it was done, as if I had completed a final adulting hurdle.
Turns out there's another big one: Long-term care.
I have a "financial advisor" who, according to his resume, used to manage a bar in Oakland's Jack London Square before graduating to managing people's retirement accounts. Same-same, right?
On calls, he always says "nice to meet you," forgetting that we have had previous Zoom meetings.
He really wanted to help me invest the money from the sale of my San Francisco apartment right before the market tanked. (Thank god I said no.)
In short, one might think he's an idiot.
But a couple months ago, he brought up long-term care, and asked if I had a plan. You know, since I have no husband or children to take care of me in my old age.
I didn't even know what long-term care meant. Like, nursing home? One step ahead of hospice? And wouldn't whatever is left in the Medicare fund pay for that? No, no, and LOL hell no.
A different financial advisor broke it down for me at a very high level. There is a list of things called Activities of Daily Living, and once you can't do more than X of them on your own, that's when your long-term care plan gets activated. Those activities are:
Dressing/bathing
Eating
Ambulating (walking)
Toileting
Hygiene
An easy way to remember these: The first letters spell out DEATH.
It sounds like you can pay monthly or yearly fees into some kind of account, like put money aside for when you need it. Or you can buy some kind of insurance. I have two months to read all the stuff the dude sent me before we have a call to talk through it and make some decisions.
Anyway, I've been thinking about the phrase "activities of daily living." I want it to be so much more than eating, showering, and using a toilet. My ideal daily activities, if there were three times as many hours in each day, would include:
Playing tennis
Going to museums
Volunteering
Spending time with friends and family
Going to ska and reggae shows
Walking dogs in Rock Creek Park
Reading
Watching TikTok videos
Antiquing
Eating ice cream
My mother probably spent years researching long-term care, with spreadsheets and calculators and amortization tables. I'm gonna spend a couple hours reading about it, make a decision, and then get my ass back on the tennis court, the park trail, and the dance floor.
Links
"I don't want to chase youth. I want to chase now." Brooke Shields is my new role model. (Glamour)
Why antidepressants take so long to work. (Wired)
Charlotte Clymer on when both silence and statement become complicity. (Substack)
I want certain family members to learn about ring theory. (Wikipedia)
Duh: Retailers would rather complain about shoplifting than invest in fighting it. (Vox)
Wendy MacNaughton on Ruth Asawa. (Draw Together)
Amazed at this dude's ability to match paint colors. (Boing Boing)
One time I went into the Silver Crest Diner on Bayshore in San Francisco, and it looked so sketchy I turned right around and walked out. Reading this makes me wish I'd stayed. (Alta)
F*** around and find out, tuba player edition. (Boing Boing)
If you saw the Barbie movie, you may appreciate Ken with a Cat. (YouTube)